


closer to indigo than cerulean

by jackdawblue



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Everybody Lives, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 07:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18383579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackdawblue/pseuds/jackdawblue
Summary: teresa dreams in blue, blue, always blue. she meets a boy in the blue hours, minho. he dreams too.





	closer to indigo than cerulean

 

 

 

 

 

it is in the library at four am when they first meet. december, cold outside. her breath smokes in the stairwell. as she enters the library proper, she trips on his bag and spills herself and a to-go coffee all over the floor.  _smooth_ , a man's voice whispers.

she glares at him from the ground. her wrist burns where it's in contact with the spilt coffee and his eyes are liquid-dark, mouth a mere shadow. she doesn't know him.  _piss off. why are you here at this time, anyway?_

_why are you?_

she pushes herself to sitting and shakes coffee droplets off her arm, then starts rummaging in her bag for some tissues. _i can't sleep._

the dim lighting shifts on his face, highlights and shadows writhing as his eyebrows rise.  _me neither._

_don't fuck with me._  she finds a tissue and begins wiping at her wrist.

_i'm not_ , he says, extending one hand.  _why the fuck else would i be studying physics at four am when my exam is two months away?_

she considers, and allows him to pull her to her feet. his hand is warm with short fingers. _d’you make a habit of studying at four am?_

_it's better than staring at my ceiling_ , he shrugs.

the library is warmer than her usual haunt, the abandoned church on the corner of town with the lock that's too easy to pop with a hairpin, but she doesn't say that. she merely pulls up a chair opposite and drops her poetry book onto the seat before going to find some more tissues for the puddle of coffee on the floor.

 

 

-

 

 

_t_ , someone is murmuring.  _t, wake up, we’re in a lecture._

there’s a hand on her shoulder, cool fingers on her bare skin. she shudders into wakefulness.  _thanks_.

the girl next to her - it takes teresa a moment to recognise her as sonya, her friend sonya, all long blond hair and bright hazel eyes - just smiles. _i’m sorry i had to wake you, you looked like you could have used the nap._

teresa runs a hand across her face, the flesh of her palm sliding across freckle-spattered cheeks and down the bridge of her nose. she exhales onto her hand and it’s lukewarm. she’s real. she’s breathing. _god, sorry, i’m just so tired._

sonya smiles, twirls her pen around her fingers. _it’s no bother, really._

 

 

-

 

 

another two midnight meetings later, she realises that she still doesn't know his name.

_minho,_  he whispers.

she knows the shadows of his mouth better than she knows his name.  _teresa._

_teresa,_ he repeats.  _like mother teresa?_

_something like that._

 

 

-

 

 

she passed her driving test two months before thomas did. he blames it on a pernickety examiner - she blames it on the fact that he has been known to negotiate roundabouts in fourth gear. the first time he did it, their mother had screamed and clutched at the door handle so tightly that teresa could see every tendon in her hand, standing out of her skin like the rows of salad seedlings she’d been weeding the day before. teresa’s breath had caught in her chest and a sick terror flooded her veins, blue and cold and blue and clinical and _blue_  and -

she got her licence two weeks after her test. the card was shiny in its newness, boastful. peeved, thomas noted that the id photo was missing the ever-present bags under her eyes. she batted him with her history folder and told him to get in the passenger seat.

the journey there was peaceful, thomas playing light acoustic music through the car stereo, teresa tucking her hair behind her ear as she eased the car down the highwa. waking herself up with the pink-peach-gold burst of clouds across the skyline. she’d turned to thomas when they arrived, grinned at him, and he’d smiled back after a beat. she was energetic, god, she felt clean of blue. she felt awake.

on the way home, she hit a bird. crushed its skull under her front left tyre despite standing on the brakes. blood seeping red into the tarmac. blue seeping through her veins. she sat on the side of the road, hyperventilating, fingers dug into the crooks of her elbows because she could feel the pinpricks there, digging up her veins like pipework. thomas sat on the hood of the car, watching. she took half an hour to stop shaking but she spent the night at her textbooks instead of sleeping.

 

 

-

 

 

_why are you awake, teresa?_

she sighs. _you know i don’t sleep well, thomas_. his face is distorted by the angle of his phone, chin unnaturally large and eyes distant.

_still, we’re like, what, six time zones apart? eight? i don’t even know but i know that you should be asleep._

she pushes her hair off her shoulder and it spills down her back. it’s three am. her textbook digs into her sternum, the central bony plate between a pair of bony cages, where she’s lying on it. _i’m fine, thomas, i swear._

_yeah, yeah_. he rubs a hand over his face. he never was a morning person.  _don’t suffer in silence, okay?_

_i won’t._

_promise me, teresa._

the yellow light of her dorm is making her eyes itch. _i promise_.

 

 

-

 

 

_your coffee smells really strong_ , minho says. _i can smell you coming up the stairs with that stuff._

she shrugs. turns a page in her book. it's mandatory reading for tomorrow's lecture and she's only half-way through.

_besides, why you do you drink it if you can't sleep? the caffeine won't help._

she looks at him, blue pen poised over his problem set. he always writes in blue ink except to highlight concepts - then it's red, harsh against the white paper. she looks away. she hates the colour blue.

_i hate sleeping_. another page turned.  _i hate dreaming_.

he shifts in his seat. the shadows flicker across his face as he turns to face her, eyebrows now morphing to black and cheekbones high. _i dream better with my eyes open, too_.

she sighs and closes her book. she won't finish it tonight.  _i have nightmares. like i'm drowning, and i can't see any colour except blue. like i can't breathe, like there are needles stuck into the crooks of my elbows that'll snap when i sit up and bend my arms. like there's a hole excavated in my chest. i'm dying on a laboratory table and there are people watching._

 

 

-

 

 

the library is empty.

teresa stands in the doorway and stares, steam rising from her cup. the shadows are empty, yawning and dark and devoid of a boy with high cheekbones and heavy physics textbooks.

she sleeps in the chair that he normally takes and wakes gasping for air. her chest heaves and the pale fingers of dawn reach for her bare legs.

 

 

-

 

 

harriet nudges her at lunch the next day. _are you okay?_

_yeah, thanks,_  teresa replies. _just tired_.

sonya pulls her sandwich out of her bag. brown bread, pink ham and green cucumber poke out the sides. the plastic bag rustles desperately as sonya scrumples it up. _you’re always tired, t_. her voice is muffled round the sandwich.  _you need to get some sleep_.

_i just_ \- she stutters. she can’t explain. she knows she can’t. she told minho, she thought he’d understand because he spent so many hours awake, and he’d left her. she’d studied alone in the library the past week, treading up the dark stairwell to find an empty pair of chairs. ceiling-ward coffee spirals her only company. just her and her poetry. and that was how it used to be, sure; that was how she operated before she met him. slip into the church at the edge of town, blanket wrapped around her waist, moonlight splaying red triangles through the stained glass across her face, her assigned readings. the familiar ache in her upper arm from holding a torch over her book for hours on end.

and yet, now that she’s accustomed to him, his quiet manner, the solitude in the bow of his lips and the tides in his liquid eyes, she feels bereft.

_i get nightmares a lot_ , she mutters, and harriet squeezes her shoulder gently.

_t, god, i’m sorry._

_it’s not your fault, don’t worry about it._

sonya takes another bite of her sandwich. _have you seen anyone about it?_

teresa shakes her head. counts the freckles on the back of her hand as she replies, _i don’t want to see a shrink._

harriet takes her hand - she’d got to sixteen freckles. _if we can do anything..._  

_thanks, guys._  and she means it.

 

 

-

 

 

she manages to catch thomas on facetime just before dinner. she’s curled up in a quiet corner of the common room, her headphones in. she watches him rush around his dorm room. _you going somewhere?_

_mm._  he picks up a blue shirt, holds it up to the light. she heaves a breath of relief when he puts it down in favour of a grey one. she tells herself that it compliments his dark skin better, not that she has an issue with blue.  _got a date_.

_oh?_  she arches a brow. _where? with whom?_

he rolls his eyes at the camera, propped up on his desk by a stack of flashcards, and she feels the familiar sibling mock-embarrassment all the way across the atlantic. _local restaurant for dinner. his name’s newt. he's very nice._

_what’s he studying?_

_biomed. honestly, he never shuts up about it. it’s kinda like listening to you talk about books all the time._

_hey!_  teresa says indignantly. _i never did it at the dinner table after you complained!_

_yeah, but, like_ \- thomas pauses, throws a clean pair of jeans on his bed next to the grey shirt. they’re black. runs a hand through his hair like he’s distracted. _every time we drove to college, you’d be talking about lit analyses. i mean, i could practically give a lecture on the male-female dynamics present in macbeth by this point._

_it’s_ interesting _, you heathen._

he rolls his eyes again and she laughs. _yeah, but when you’re a science student…honestly, it just goes over my head._

he tugs at his shirt and she gets the message - he needs to change. _good luck on your date. knock him dead. be charming._

_thanks,_  he says. _now get some sleep_ , _you._

_i will_. she ends the call, a sinking feeling of guilt wrapping itself around the strings of her intestines and squeezing tight. 

harriet smiles at her from across the room and teresa realises that she had zoned out, staring. _hey, do you want to come out with us tonight? we're pre-gaming at sonya’s from nine thirty, then heading out._

_sorry, i can’t_ , teresa says. she injects apology into her voice and it sounds convincing enough. _i’m so exhausted from this week, i’d just drag you guys down._

harriet frowns. concern is writ in the tight skin of her brow, the furrows of her eyebrows. maybe not convincing enough. _how about next week?_

_definitely._

harriet’s gaze is measured but she’s still frowning.

 

 

-

 

 

_i dream the same dreams as you,_ he says.

she doesn't put her bag or coffee down.  _where the fuck were you the other night? or the whole of last week?_

_sleeping? like everyone else at this time?_

_don't fuck with me,_ she says.  _you don't sleep_.

he runs a hand across his face, smearing his cheekbones into a shadowed mess, like smudged gouache. _wouldn't you freak out if someone sat in front of you, someone who you only met a couple of months back, and described to you the nightmares you've had since you were a teenager? wouldn't you find that a little creepy?_

_you have the blue dreams?_

_yeah._ his mouth is small and concave and dark, and he twists it to get the words out.  _i dream the blue dreams. like i'm dying in the most scientific way possible and someone's watching._

she sits down.  _even physics beats that._

his mouth twitches in a smile.

 

 

-

 

 

_d’you guys know minho?_

harriet looks up from her phone. _minho kang? sure, he’s a physics major, right?_  

_mm._

_yeah, he lives down the corridor from me. why?_

_i met him in the library the other day,_  teresa shrugs. _seems a nice guy_.

sonya is braiding her hair. _pretty quiet, though_.

_yeah, well. not all of us can be the life and soul of the party._

sonya laughs. _i host pre-drinks because everyone leaves their half-full bottles of tequila with me and i can drink the rest all week._

harriet snorts. _fucking alcoholic._

_you love me for it._

teresa is still hung up on sonya’s _half-full_.

 

 

-

 

 

his fingers graze the inside of her elbow and she jerks.  _what the fuck?_

_you don't have any marks from the dreams, do you?_

she stares.  _they're only dreams_. but when minho reaches for her arm again, she lets him take it. his fingers are hot and threaten to scorch her veins - the skin is only thin there, the veins only blue tubing to prevent blood from pooling in her fingers - but he only touches her gently. he presses on the veins a few times.

_you have bouncy veins._

_what the fuck._

he grins.  _kidding._ he releases her arm, and she tucks it back against her body. _sometimes i wonder how real the dreams are. i wanted to check._

_check on your own damn arm,_ she says but he grins and she knows that he knows that she doesn't mean it.

 

 

-

 

 

_have you been getting more sleep?_

teresa frowns at her phone, open to facetime. her chin is propped on the bone stacks of her hands.  _how did you know?_

thomas taps at the area just under his own eyes, the skin-covered hollow between bone socket and eyeball. _less blue under here_.

she shivers involuntarily, hopes that she’s far enough away from the camera for thomas to miss it. _i have been sleeping a bit better._

_thank god._

a lull of silence. then teresa asks, _so how are you and newt?_

thomas smiles, small and shy, baby-bird. _we’re good. we’re going out to dinner again this weekend._

_god, you’re so traditional._

he laughs. _he’s lovely._ _you two’d get along like a house on fire._

_yeah?_

_yeah._

_you’ll have to bring him home, then._

thomas laughs. _or get him on one of our facetime conversations. he’ll do the classic triple-take when he sees that my sister is white._

despite herself, teresa snorts. _that’s always amusing_.

someone yells his name in the background and he groans.  _ah, shit, gotta go. get some sleep_. he cuts off the call and she stares at her phone, the contact photo of thomas, beaming wide in a blue shirt. blue.

she changes the photo and then locks her phone. the black screen stares back at her.

 

 

-

 

 

_have you always come to this library?_

he puts a sticky in his textbook. it's yellow, but he writes on it in blue ink. she still hates that about him.  _when i can't sleep? yeah._

_i didn't use to_ , she says.

_i know._

_d'you want to see where i went?_

his textbook closes with a heavy thump.  _so long as it's not some ploy to take me out of town and murder me and then dump my body._

_ha ha._ her fingers close around his wrist. the bones are thicker than her own, more solid. they weigh more. they ground her.  _wanna come?_

 

 

-

 

 

his breath smokes in the cool of the church.  _wow._

he turns his face to the ceiling, dark wood carved into high, arching beams, adorned with roses and coated in years' worth of cobwebs, turning the mahogany ash grey.  _how did you find this place?_

she slips into a pew. _my grandmother always talked about how she met her husband at the church on the edge of town. i wanted to find it._

_have you ever brought her here?_

_she died before i could find it._

he stares at a wall hanging, a dove that was once silver and is now steel.  _i'm sorry._

there's nothing more to say, only a boy with high cheekbones and liquid-dark eyes to watch and her breath to catch when he rests his fingers in the hollow of her throat.  _thank you_.

there's nothing more to say.

 

 

-

 

 

_d'you mind if i write my essay in here?_

he frowns.  _why would i mind?_

_the keyboard's noisy on my laptop_. she boots up the machine, blinking in the blue light of the boot screen. she wills it to boot faster, to reach her greyscale desktop image.

_cute desktop_ , he says, leaning over.  _who's the guy?_

_my brother._

his breath puffs hot against her neck, against the pulse point. very hot.  _you don't look alike._

_he's adopted._

_what's his name?_

_thomas_. she unlocks her phone and scrolls through her photos to find another picture of him, this one in colour to show off his red face and muddy shirt. she'd taken it after a rugby game and he'd made her swear to delete it. she kept conveniently forgetting.  _he went to uni in england._

minho snorts.  _it's alright for some._

_you don't like the states?_

_of course i don't. no one gives a shit about the little people, and there are too many girls who drink too much coffee._

she huffs as he laughs, low. his shoulder shakes against hers with mirth and she wonders how she ever thought that january was cold.

 

 

-

 

 

_hey. you should sleep in a proper bed, you know._

_i wasn't asleep._

_tell that to your squashed problem set_ , she says. she doesn't take her hand off his shoulder, even though she's shaken him back to consciousness.  _c'mon. my room's closer._

they slip out of the church, locking the door with a pop behind themselves. teresa realises that she's left her poetry book inside but minho's fingers are solid curled around her own, laced between them, and she can't bring herself to turn around.

watching minho sleep, she realises that she never would have finished her reading anyway. she is too lost in the lines of his face - she can see them all for the first time in the soft light of her bedside lamp, lying beside him under her duvet cover. she'd tried to say that she'd sleep on the sofa but he'd just murmured something unintelligible and pulled her under the down next to him. he'd gone out like a light, a firefly at dawn, but she is wide awake, her fingers hovering just above the curve of his lips, the hollows under his cheeks, the blue smudges of sleeplessness above and below his eyes. they're a different blue to her nightmares, closer to indigo than cerulean, and they make her breath stutter. closer to asphyxiation than drowning.

he wakes when she falls asleep, fingers landing on his jaw as her muscles go slack.

 

 

-

 

 

he kisses her on the mouth when she draws up a chair next to him in the library and she's so shocked that she drops her coffee all over again.

 

 

 

-

 

 

_you're calm when you sleep_ , he tells her.

she frowns but it only makes him laugh.  _less grumpy, too._

_shut up._  his palm is hot on her bare stomach.  _what the fuck._

_you look small in my sweater_ , he says.

_you'd look stupid in mine_ , she replies.

he pokes her, making her frown again. _it's nice._

_i didn't dream last night_ , she says.

_really?_ he withdraws his hand and suddenly she can breathe again. the oxygen is heady.  _i'm glad._

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> helloooo so it's been a hot minute! not sure if people even use lapslock anymore but this has been in my notes for nearly 2y so it's time that it made it into the world!!
> 
> ✩ if you've enjoyed reading my work, please consider supporting me via [my ko-fi!](http://ko-fi.com/jackdawblue) ✩


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